Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Thought for the Day

Today as I was riding home, a car pulls out of a driveway to my front left and backs out towards me. Nothing wrong with that - perfectly normal. I'm 100 yards away and the driver has plenty of space to complete his/her turn. There are no other vehicles or pedestrians around. I ride up behind, slow down and wait for the driver to complete the maneuver.

Then the driver sees me and, presumably, panics.

Instead of just completing the turn and going forward, he or she pulls into the oncoming traffic lane and just stops. All that was needed was for him or her to apply gasoline and go, but no. Now I'm presented with a situation that is not a part of normal road usage. Do I stop and wait? Do I overtake on the right - moving into the blind spot of a car whose owner clearly wants to move forward into my lane? Maybe this bozo is on a cellphone, in which case anything could happen.

Eventually, I rode past, very carefully on his/her right, and sure enough, the motorist pulls into the lane behind me. The motorist was waiting for me, because as every motorist knows, acting stupid out of some panicked sense of courtesy is precisely what a cyclist wants to see motorists do.

If I stop for you, I'm fricken waiting for you to go. I am not waiting for you to stop to let me go.

Trust me, motorists, I already think you're incompetent. You don't need
to prove it to me every single day. Give some days a miss, okay?

3 comments:

It never ceases to amaze me when people come up behind me and refuse to pass me, even with no oncoming traffic and plenty of room. It's as if they've never seen a bicycle before. Or maybe they think I'm a UFO ?

About Me

I'm from Sheffield, Yorkshire. I lived my first 22 years in England. Between 1984 and 1986, I cycled 10,000 miles throughout Western Europe. I met my American wife in Austria in 1988 and moved to the USA in 1989. I've worked as a shop assistant, a draughtsman, an artist, a bartender, a picture framer, a writer and a genealogical researcher. My daughter and I are probably "The Silver Spring Cyclists" - the only people in town who commute on the bike every day through fair weather or foul: rain, snow, hot or cold. No matter what, we're out on our bikes.

Quotes on Cycling and Society

"When a cow follows the herd, it ends up at a slaughterhouse. When cyclists use bike facilities, they end up at an intersection, often with the same unhappy result as the cow. Use the road - it's safer!" - me again.

"Vehicular cycling techniques have not been tried and found difficult. They have been presumed difficult and not tried." - P.M. Summer, paraphrasing G.K. Chesterton

"If American bicycle advocacy leaders had championed the civil rights movement, the 'Dream' would have been reserved seating in the back of the bus." - Jack R. Taylor

"The task of the 'protected' bicycle facility is to hide collision participants from each other right up to the point of impact." - John Schubert

"Position on the road is by far the most important influence that a cyclist has over his safety. Indeed, the loss of this ability to influence the actions of others is one reason why road-side cycle tracks and shared footways increase danger at junctions. Many cyclists fail to position themselves properly because of their fear of traffic, yet it is this very fear that puts them most at risk. Encouraging unsafe behaviour by directing cyclists to more hazardous positions does nobodyany favours." - John Franklin

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so" - Mark Twain